Ver. 373. Come then, my friend! &c.] This noble apostrophe, by which the poet concludes the Essay in an address to his friend, will furnish a critic with examples of every one of those five species of elocution, from which, as from its sources, Longinus deduceth the sublime.
1. The first and chief is a grandeur and sublimity of conception:
Come then, my friend! my genius! come along;
O master of the poet, and the song!
And while the muse now stoops, and now ascends,
To man's low passions, or their glorious ends.
2. The second, that pathetic enthusiasm, which, at the same time, melts and inflames:
Teach me, like thee, in various nature wise,
To fall with dignity, with temper rise;
Formed by thy converse, happily to steer
From grave to gay, from lively to severe;
Correct with spirit, eloquent with ease,
Intent to reason, or polite to please.
3. A certain elegant formation and ordonance of figures:
Oh! while along the stream of time thy name
Expanded flies, and gathers all its fame,
Say, shall my little bark attendant sail,
Pursue the triumph, and partake the gale?
4. A splendid diction:
When statesmen, heroes, kings, in dust repose
Whose sons shall blush their fathers were thy foes,
Shall then this verse to future age pretend
Thou wert my guide, philosopher, and friend?
That urged by thee, I turned the tuneful art,
From sounds to things, from fancy to the heart;
For wit's false mirror held up nature's light.
5. And fifthly, which includes in itself all the rest, a weight and dignity in the composition: